Giving the Little Woman Something to Do

Sniggers of glee were echoing up and down Whitehall today as the Government delegated a female Liberal Democrat minister to explain why the Liberal Democrats are abandoning a rather weak manifesto pledge on equal pay. The degree of importance which Daveybloke's Cuddlies assign to equality in the workplace is indicated more or less blatantly by the fact that they have appointed a Liberal Democrat as the relevant minister; but the message has now been shoved home with the usual Bullingdonian rampancy as the Government announced its intention to absorb her ministry into the Home Office. "I'm hoping that it's an upgrading, in that it's being brought into the heart of government," said Lynne Featherstone, who is just utterly thrilled to bits at being promoted from minister of state to sub-departmental something-or-other: "It will be mainstream, not added on to departments. It has to work integrally." Working integrally in this coalition, as we now know, is largely definable as caving in to the cuddlies. Two years ago Featherstone said, "A voluntary audit system for private industry is hardly worth the paper it's printed on"; and today Featherstone defended a voluntary audit system for private industry: "It was a different world two years ago". It was before the election two years ago; some people promised to oppose tuition fees two years ago; Nick Clegg wasn't deputy Prime Minister two years ago. We're through the looking glass now, people, and you'd be a fool and a Stalinist to claim otherwise.